What Mother Doesn't Know
by Penemuel
Summary: It was worth the silence.


**Note(s): **Just a sample I had to do somewhere. I've never written Embry before, so I kind of pulled it out of thin air, and it's been a long time since I actually read the books. Sorry in advance ;3 Also it's unbeta'd because I'm a lazy shit.

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He could tolerate the screaming. No, it wasn't ideal, having to wake up to have his mother shouting at him, having words and accusations hurled at him as she tried to figure out just where she had gone wrong, but it was little compared to what she was going through, he figured; little compared to what she herself must be thinking every time she walked into his room at night and found him missing. He deserved this, part of his mind told him. He deserved this for keeping such a secret from her, and he consoled himself with the fact that it was for her own good. She wouldn't be able to keep this a secret; he was protecting her. He was protecting his pack.

That was what made it easier to bear. That was what helped him keep his mouth shut, when all he wanted to do was open it and protest his innocence and tell her what was _really _going on so he didn't have to listen to her blame herself anymore, because she was still his mother and he did love her. He had to remind himself daily that she was right to be angry.

The blood dribbling down to his chin at that moment was a testament to how hard it was to keep silent, sometimes.

With stilted movements, Embry wiped the blood from his face where his teeth had pierced his lip and stared at his reflection in the mirror, scowling at the clouded glass and the somewhat distorted reflection that gazed back at him. His mother had declared him grounded, of course, as she did every morning, but just like she continued to ground him so too did he continue to sneak out of the house at night. He wouldn't give it up, no matter how much she yelled at him, just as he would never yell back at her. In a roundabout way, he supposed, with a rueful smile, that his silence was a way of apologising for that. He could never tell her the truth-even with his pack members trying to convince Sam to let him, he knew he could not-but he could still make it as easy on her as he could be not yelling back, by not getting angry with her.

She thought he was leaving her, he knew, and she was frightened for him, in her own way. His father had left her, leaving her to raise him on her own, and she had done that to the best of her abilities, and he never gave her any reason to doubt that she had done right. It would frighten her to think that he was rebelling, threatening to leave her like his father had, but it would frighten her even more to know the truth, and it would put her in unnecessary anger.

So he kept his silence, and he did not complain, even though his pack members often gazed upon him with pity when they shifted and indirectly experienced the encounter through Embry's thoughts. It was for her own good, though his pack members lamented the fact that telling her would erase part of the burden.

"I would only be replacing it with something else," Embry murmured to his reflection, even as he let out a small bark of bitter laughter. "Talking to yourself is the first sign of insanity, Em," he continued before straightening and pushing himself away from the old sink, running his hand briefly through his hair before he walked down the short hallway to his room, with its door left half-open, hanging on rusting hinges. It would be his haven for the next however many hours he spent stuck in here, isolated from the outside for a secret he could not reveal.

Come night, though, he'd leave, and join his pack in protecting the reservation that had been his home all his life; he'd finally contribute something useful, and give back to his mother the time he had stolen from her, and all the effort she had spent worrying and raising him, whether she knew it or not.

A small smile flickered across Embry's face.

It was worth the silence. After all, what mother didn't know couldn't hurt her.


End file.
